


Origin Story

by Galadriel



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Beginnings, Childhood Memories, Computers, Creation, Family, Father Figures, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Gen, Introspection, Love, Memories, Pre-Canon, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 01:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3468866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel/pseuds/Galadriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Tony completes work on his newest invention, he finds his thoughts filled with memories of the men who made him who he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Origin Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Empy (Empyreus)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empyreus/gifts).



> It's been a while since I wrote something outside of exchange fics (which, mind you, are always tons of fun), so I thought it was time to get my head back in the game and write something just to write it.
> 
> Much love and gratitude to Empy, who not only makes a great beta, but is forever supportive and insightful. ♥ Thank you, madame.

_Almost done now. Tony shuts off the soldering iron and sets it carefully aside. The goggles go next, pushed up over his forehead, and he blinks as his eyes adjust. He glimpses his reflection, caught in shining chrome, and grins at the grit and dirt painting his cheeks, the sweat and grime creeping down from his hairline. He chuckles at the wild look in his eyes, a marker of insanity or genius, the line too thin to really matter, easy to excuse so long as he produces results._

_Howard was like that, he knows. Bigger than life, bursting with energy and ideas, driven to create, to translate the strange language of the mind into the work of his fingers, the abstract given form, given function, given life._

When Tony thinks of his father, he remembers him at a distance. Not a bad parent, per se, but rather an ideal to strive for, a man to look up to, a scientist to impress. 

His memories are filled with the acrid tang of burning chemicals, the dry dust of endlessly shuffled paper, the clang and clatter of metal on metal, wrench on bolt, lock on door. His father smiles at him through a pane of glass, grease and grime smeared across his forehead, something like expectation in his eyes.

He is the words of encouragement as Tony takes hammer to anvil, as he tinkers with his first circuit board. But he is also the empty space at the dinner table; the vacant chair in the living room; the flickering picture on the television screen, waving to Tony and his mother from another coast, another podium, always more than an arm's reach away.

Yet when Tony feels his way through the forest of well-worn words that spring up around his every step, the ones that every interviewer and reporter grasps at as if they are the only three adjectives left in the universe to describe his adult life, he holds them up like a mirror to his father's face. Is he everything his father hoped he could be? Is he the technicolour version of his father's black and white life? Is he a reboot of the original or a failed pilot doomed to flare bright, then fade into darkness and obscurity?

_It's nothing more than a few loose wires, a few connectors still lacking connections. Blue and black twist between his fingers, green and white already secured in place, patiently waiting for the bracing jolt of that first electrical charge._

_He'll throw the switch soon, bring an end to the itch in his fingers, the buzz of his brain. In interviews too myriad for a small boy to count, Howard spoke of being compelled, of needing to invent more than simply wanting to, and Tony supposes he understands._

_He supposes a lot of things, like that there must be truth in advertising, in what people tell him, that he is his father's son. Certainly it echoes around him often enough, wreathes around his head like a halo, creeps down his spine, the pressure enough to leave imprints on his soul, firm enough that he can feel them as if they were fingerprints smeared across his skin._

_Is he Howard 2.0? Sometimes he feels it, the magnetic pull of DNA, at the mercy of the tides and bound to a helix, but more often than not he's simply Tony, broken, bruised, fucked up Tony pasted together with other people's hopes and dreams, held together with duct tape and bluster._

There is not one frame, not one photo, not one film cell that holds an answer. Howard Stark smiles back at him in every one, always a beacon of hope, a shining example of the best America has to offer: dashing, handsome, rich and _smart_ , full to the brim and bubbling over with ideas and inventions that will save us all, _have_ saved us all, each one another reason he cannot be home before Tony's bedtime. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. But perhaps next week, when he isn't needed, when there won't be a crisis, when the world is calm and the most important task in the world is checking under little boys' beds for monsters before tucking them in to sleep.

There were far too few of those evenings, a handful that Tony holds on to and remembers, but even then he knew better than to resent his absent father. He was the son of a great man, and that greatness was a balm meant to soothe all familial wounds. And knowing that, knowing that his father's work trumped all, that it was the most important thing in the world for Howard to stand at the side of the personification of Red, White and Blue made the bitter pill easier to swallow, easier to keep down, easier to ignore as it sat like a pebble in his stomach.

And that is why, when Tony thinks of fatherly pride, his thoughts turn away from the expectation in his father's eyes. Instead, he remembers the warmth of a different pair of hands, the gentle pat and squeeze of palm and fingers resting on his shoulder, the approving murmur of another voice in his ear. He remembers quiet, steady stillness, a subtle undercurrent to Howard's burbling, splashing, tumbling stream. 

The kind of solid foundation easily taken for granted, steel and iron in his support, a helping hand to a boy and his mother, ever-watchful, ever-patient, ever-present.

_Tony wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, heedless of the long black smudge the gesture leaves behind. The panel fits perfectly, snapping in place like the last puzzle piece. Already, the terminals that fill his lab are whirring with code, their screens scrawling and scrolling through the mathematics of life. It will be hours yet before the system is fully up to speed, but the call and response subroutines should be some of the first to boot._

It is moments like these, deep in the bowels of invention, covered in grease and grinning like a loon, that he is half-convinced he lives up to his father's legacy, that he's the man Howard hoped he would be. At the very least, he's a real-life simulacrum, a twenty-first century playboy in place of Howard's twentieth century rake. 

Yet it is not Howard who inspires him now, not the man who Tony sees when he closes his eyes. No, this invention, this creation, this _life_ is meant as protector, defender, companion and rock. There is only one man who could possibly live up to such standards.

One man he still can't bear to lose.

_He picks his laptop up from the floor, opens up a prompt and types in a string, the interface not yet a pretty user-friendly menu. The hum of the system lurching into being, the crackle of static from a nearby speaker makes Tony smile. Palm pressed to the panel, he can feel the vibrations under his fingers, a modern-day Michelangelo marking the creation of a new man._

_There is a pause, and for a moment, Tony is sure his carefully-built creature is about to disintegrate beneath his fingertips. His breath catches, doubt and certainty balanced between inhale and exhale. He hears a tiny click, a soft whirr, and then an almost-familiar voice murmurs into the air around him..._

_"Sir?"_

_Tony's next breath is deep, muscles he didn't even realize were tense relaxing. A sudden giddiness overtakes him, rolling up his spine and out his limbs, warmth spreading from the centre of his chest to the roots of his hair, to the ends of his toes. He wants to shout to the rooftops, tell the world of his triumph, but instead he remembers those patient, calming, loving hands._

_His smile grows as he stands. Addressing the air, empty of all but echoes only a moment ago, now the domain of his own Stark-created omnipresence, a little bit of life snatched back from an eternity of loss, he struggles to contain the excitement in his voice._

_"Welcome to the world, JARVIS."_


End file.
